Hi,
I have a client who wants to be able to hover over different parts of their logo and then have some text appear.
I do not know how to do this using Flash so thought that maybe using an Image Map would be appropriate with some jQuery effects to make the pop up text look ok.
I’m just looking for opinions on whether this would be a reasonable method or has the web moved from Image Maps.
thanks
aor
the logo is here http://www.jscltd.ie/images/banners/jsclogolarge.gif
they want to be able to hover over, say, customer and a pop up appears with a couple of lines detailing maybe how they are customer focussed…
and the same with quality, safety and productivity…
i guess a tooltip would be ideal …its just to get it to fire…
I’m not sure it will really look too good but its what they they want…
maybe i should move this to the javascript section ?
thanks again,
aor
As far as I’m aware, the web had moved on. There are some other ways to do hover effects that might be better. For example, the image could be a background image, and the text to appear on hover could be organized in the CSS only to show on hover. But ideally, the shapes will be regular and not complex and overlapping.
Especially if the hotspots on the image are irregular in shape then I would use an image map.
I wouldn’t use an image map say for a menu bar.
thanks for the reply Ralph…
the logo is diamond shaped with a word on each side…
the user hovers over each word and a pop up should appear displaying more text…
i’ve found this Build a Better Tooltip with jQuery Awesomeness | Nettuts+
so maybe i can use some sort of tooltip…not sure how easy it will be with the words displaying at an angle…
thanks again
Could you give us a visual example of what you are picturing? Otherwise we are guessing a bit.
You could certainly divide that up into 4 normal squares and have a different corner appear on hover. Partly depends on whether the text extends beyond the image or not. Or you could just have text appear on hover. You could do that without JS. But, as you said, it’s an odd request, and probably won’t look too good. How will users even know to hover for the effect?
thanks Ralph…
i’m not sure even what would be a good alternative…
they want it to appear on the front page beside a rotating image gallery…
thats far too “busy” to my mind…
maybe i’ll just direct them to using the logo with the text already displayed and when the user hovers over it the background colour could change or some subtle effect like that…
just thinking that maybe i could fire 4 popups on body load in consecutive order with a few seconds between each…
that could be a simple css display and jquery fade in maybe…
That sounds much more reasonable to me. I’m a bit fed up with people who dream up cute or fancy effects that are ugly and impractical to everyone but themselves. Their focus should be on what’s most useful to the end user, rather than what trickery they can dream up. 
thats what i’ll do so…any problems and i’ll tell em ralph said so!
Yep, do that. And tell 'em I’m Aussie, and wrestle crocodiles with my bare hands, and eat 'em raw. 
